Written Answers Thursday 3 April 2008

Scottish Executive

Housing (Scotland) Act 2001

Irene Oldfather (Cunninghame South) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive whether the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001 requires local authorities to consult sheltered housing residents about any proposals to remove warden services.

Stewart Maxwell: I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-10817 on 19 March 2008. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search .

NHS Staff

Ross Finnie (West of Scotland) (LD): To ask the Scottish Executive what proportion of (a) nurses, (b) midwives and (c) doctors were working in the NHS in Scotland three years after they qualified in Scotland, broken down by NHS board in each of the last five years and what information it has on how these figures compare with those for each category who qualified across the United Kingdom.

Nicola Sturgeon: The Scottish Government is committed to ensure that there are sufficient numbers of health care workers trained to meet health care demand. Through our established process for workload and workforce planning, the Scottish Government will continue to plan for appropriate numbers that reflect both issues of supply and demand across Scotland.

  The specific information requested is not centrally available. Workforce details for NHSScotland are published on the Scottish health statistics website under Workforce Statistics at: www.isdscotland.org/workforce. Latest available data is at 30 September 2007.

National Health Service

Jackson Carlaw (West of Scotland) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive what steps it is taking to monitor the effectiveness of the complaints system in the NHS.

Nicola Sturgeon: We work closely with the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman and the Scottish Health Council to ensure that the NHS complaints procedure is easy to use and effective.

  We have recently commissioned the Scottish Health Council to carry out a full evaluation of the first three years of operation of the revised NHS complaints procedure.

Supporting People

Des McNulty (Clydebank and Milngavie) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive how much was allocated to West Dunbartonshire from the Supporting People Fund in (a) 2008-09 and (b) 2007-08 and what the percentage difference is in real terms.

Stewart Maxwell: West Dunbartonshire Council was allocated £14.355 million of Supporting People grant in 2007-08. From 1 April 2008, the Supporting People baseline was transferred in its entirely into the financial settlement for each local authority, and is therefore no longer separately identifiable.